Crime control theater (CCT) refers to laws that are widely supported by the public even though they are well-documented empirical failures in their effectiveness. Through a survey of a representative participant sample (N ϭ 540), the present work examines 5 CCT laws (Amber Alerts, sex offender housing restriction laws, sex offender registry laws, safe haven laws, and three-strikes sentencing laws), comparing the public's support and perceived effectiveness of these laws to five non crime control theater (NCCT) laws. Although CCT laws garnered more support and had greater perceived effectiveness than NCCT laws with a larger relative difference favoring support over effectiveness, there was considerable variation in ratings across these CCT laws. Three-strikes laws earned the least support and perceived effectiveness ratings of all examined CCT laws, while among self-identified women, sex offender-based CCT laws received particularly high ratings relative to other CCT laws. Different demographic and political characteristics may be at the root of these variations in public support for CCT laws, and the policy implications of these findings for altering the public attitudes toward various CCT laws are discussed.

Crime control theater (CCT) are criminal justice policies and laws that are widely favored by the public but are demonstrated empirical failures. Across two experiments, this research examines video interventions designed to change the public's views toward two sexual offender CCT laws-sex offender housing restrictions and sex offender registry laws. In Experiment 1 (N = 217), both factual and narrativebased interventions were successful in lowering participants' ratings of support but not effectiveness for these policies. However, whereas participants viewed the narrative-based videos as more engaging, coherent, and emotional, these differences did not translate into more significant attitude transformations or learning of the unintended consequences of these policies. In Experiment 2 (N = 133), these findings were largely replicated, and, importantly, the decrease in participants' support for these policies after the intervention was maintained a week later, with smaller decreases in participants' ratings of effectiveness evident. Yet, the exact mechanism of these attitudinal changes remains unclear but appears unrelated to their memory for or engagement with the interventions. The policy implications of these findings are discussed.